He tapped the brim of his hat and stepped back, leaving her with, "Call me if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary. You know how to get in touch with me."
"Sure."
She closed and bolted the door, but watched the cruiser until it disappeared around the curve.
"Cop sounded pretty concerned about you."
She spun, startled by Cole's voice. "Geeze, Cole, what if Tommy was still here?"
"Tommy?"
She waved him off and headed for the kitchen. "We went to school together."
"What's that he gave you?"
She handed the paper to him and pulled two coffee mugs from the cupboard. "Your picture. You're a missing person…according to the cops."
"Find out anything else about me?" he asked as she filled the mugs. "I couldn't hear much from the bedroom."
Handing him one of the coffees, she said, "Seems the search for you is being done on the QT."
"Why?" he asked.
"Don't know. I couldn't even get a last name out of Tommy. But you're not dangerous."
He shot her a smile that was half grimace. "That's something."
"The cops have been ordered not to use lethal force if they find you."
He stared at the paper in his hand. "I should turn myself in, get out of here before you wind up caught in the crossfire."
"And your stitches? They see them and they'll arrest me for aiding and abetting a fugitive."
"We don't know I'm a fugitive. I might really be just a missing man."
"You don't get it. If they even suspect I've done anything close to breaking the law, they'll haul my ass off to jail. And if I'm not here, there'll be no one to take care of Tuff or any way for me to pay off my taxes and keep my land from being sold off."
Her hand was shaking so bad, coffee splashed over the lip. Cole took the cup from her, put it on the table along with his own, and gathered her into his arms.
"I won't let that happen to you," he murmured, his breath warm and reassuring against the side of her head. "We'll do it your way."
#
But her way left them tense, on edge even.
Huddled together on the couch, Andi noticed Cole kept glancing at the door. Clearly the television was a less than effective diversion for him. Even she couldn't have repeated a word that had been said by the talk show host presently on the small screen. Andi's ears were on high alert for tires rolling into her driveway. Then there was the steady drip from the rooftop of melting snow.
"Typical February weather," she said, attempting to break the tense silence closing on them. "Snowstorm one day, spring-like sunshine the next."
He gave her a one-armed squeeze, his voice low—distracted sounding. "We had fun in the snowstorm."
The drip of melting snow nagged her. They could be having fun in the sun as well. It would have been a great day for a walk in the woods.
But only she dared go outside in case the cops watched. She was no fool. Tommy hadn't bought that she knew nothing about Cole. He just didn't know how much she knew. Whether or not they watched the cabin depended on how important it was to them to find Cole.
Cole gently nudged her away and rose from the couch. "I'm getting something to drink. You want anything?"
"No," she said, watching him stride across the room, open the fridge, and stare into it a long time before he shut the door without taking anything from it.
Not that there was much to drink in the fridge beyond milk and juice. She should have bought some beer. She bet he'd have liked to have one about now. But she hadn't kept much liquor in the house since…
She shook off the thought before it could fully form into an image in her head. Refocusing on Cole, she found him standing in front of the kitchen sink staring at the curtained window. Doing this her way wasn't fair to him.
She rose and joined him at the sink. "This isn't working."
He exhaled. "It works as long as we need it to work."
"Not when we're back to closed curtains," she said, "and are trapped inside the cabin."
He faced her. "What are you saying?"
"I'm going to remove your stitches. Then you are free to turn yourself in…if that's what you still want."
Several seconds passed before he nodded. "Let's start with the stitches."
She laid out the necessities of the job in the laundry-mudroom where, should anyone show up at the front door, he and her tools would be out-of-sight. He removed his shirt.
She gave his bare chest, his broad shoulders, and the trail of dark hair disappearing behind his waistband a long look.
He cupped her chin, brought her gaze up to meet his. "I'm not running out of here the minute you cut away the last stitch."
Her throat tightened and tears scratched at her eyes. She forced a smile and reached for the alcohol swabs and the scissors she had sitting in a cup of alcohol along with the tweezers.
"Can you hoist yourself up onto the washing machine?" she asked. "It'll be easier to work on the stitches if they're at eye level."
"Sure," he said, hopping onto the appliance.
Even though he'd said he wouldn't run out as soon as the stitches were removed, she worked slowly, memorizing the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. When she was finished with the entrance wound, she applied antiseptic to the holes left by the removed stitches and bandaged them.
"If you stand and lean over the washer…"
"It'll make it easier for you to work on the exit wound," he cut-in, hopping off the washer, turning, and leaning over it.
She scanned his back much as she had his front, longing to run her hands over his skin. Her attention stopped on his tattooed arm. She stroked its inked lines. He lifted his head toward her.
"This is the fallen man insignia," she said. "Do you remember being in the military?"
"More of it than I want to," he said, a deep sadness in his eyes leaving her wondering what else of his past he might have remembered that he hadn't shared with her.
She worked in silence, knowing each stich she removed brought him closer to leaving. When she finished, she pressed a large square bandage over the area and pulled her hands away, afraid if she let her fingers linger she'd grab him and beg him to stay.
"All finished," she said.
He straightened. She busied herself folding up the toweling on which she'd deposited the pieces of stitching.
"We should burn those and the swabs," he said.
"Yeah," she said, gathering the refuse and carrying it out to the fireplace.
They knelt on the hearth side-by-side and watched the evidence burn. When it had been reduced to ash, Andi didn't want to leave his side. But she'd already decided drawing out his leaving would only stretch out the pain. They stood together and faced each other.
"Now what?" she asked.
"I'll wait until the cover of darkness and sneak out."
She glanced at the curtained window next to the fireplace, the sunlight deep. It wouldn't be long before it got dark. Her chest tight, she turned away from Cole.
He caught her by the arm. "Andi, this might all work out for the good. Maybe I'm one of the good guys. Maybe I was just a civilian victim."
"Yeah. Maybe," she murmured, her emotions too raw—too fragile to face him.
But she let him draw her back against him, let herself sink into the warm cove of his arms.
"Maybe I'll discover I'm wealthy," he whispered against her ear, his tone teasing as if he were trying to lighten the mood. "Then I could buy you a holster of your own so you don't have to carry your gun tucked in the back of your jeans and I don't have it pressing into my gut every time I hold you like this." He sighed, his breath rifling through her loose hair, his tone turning wistful. "I can fix all your problems."
Not all of them. I'm still hiding from you a wedding band that fits your finger.
I'm still responsible for Theo's death.
I'm still a bad girl.
Wrong, at least on the last count. Cole had made her feel c
lean again. Could confessing to Cole the part she played in her brother's death release her from that guilt as well?
She turned her cheek to his shoulder, a heavy sigh escaping her.
"What is it?" he asked, his arms hugging her a little closer.
He read her so well. And she was losing him. The one man who had shown her tenderness—love—the one man who made her feel whole.
The one man who with whom she'd seen a future.
And he was leaving tonight. He'd find out who he was. Learn about his past. Maybe even remember the wedding ring he wore on a chain around his neck and realize he was married, realize how deceptive she had been in keeping the ring from him.
She closed her eyes and willed away that train of thought.
"Andi?" he prodded. "You're trembling."
She folded her arms over his, not wanting him to pull away when she confessed her mistakes. And when she spoke, her voice was small even in her own ears.
"I need to tell you how my baby brother died."
"Okay," he said, hugging her tighter to his chest.
"Dalmar, my older brother, was no longer living with us. But he'd show up when he needed something, like his laundry done, a real meal, money, or something he could steal and sell…or just someone to taunt."
Cole brushed a kiss against the crown of her head. For a man with no memory, he sure knew how to comfort a person.
She drew a deep breath and went on. "That day, the day Theo died, Dal showed up looking for money. He was in drug withdrawal. Eyes crazy wild. Couldn't stand still. Kept shouting at us for money, pushing me and Theo around because we didn't have enough for him."
Cole rocked her against him.
"He started tearing the cabin apart, insisting we had money stashed somewhere. When he couldn't find any, he grabbed the guns off the rack."
Cole pressed his lips to her hair above her ear.
"I thought he'd take the guns to sell like he had my computer and Theo's notepad and leave." She paused, her throat tightening and tears burning in her eyes.
Cole said nothing, just waited, holding her, rocking her side-to-side.
"I wasn't all that concerned until he took out the ammunition and started loading the guns."
There was a hitch in Cole's rocking and his chest expanded against her back.
"I told Dal he didn't need to load the guns. Just take them. But he was crazy paranoid. Swore we had money somewhere and he'd make us give it to him one way or another. That's when I called the police."
"You did the right thing," Cole said quietly.
Andi rolled her head back and forth against Cole's shoulder. "No. It wasn't the right thing. Cops from three agencies, sirens wailing, lights flashing, showed up in our driveway. Nobody even tried to negotiate a peaceful way out of our mess. They just hunkered down behind their squad car doors and trained their guns on the cabin."
She went still, the memory so sharp—so clear it took her back to that day. "It just provoked Dal all the more. He yelled to the cops he was coming out with a hostage and they'd better clear a path for him to drive through."
Cole's hands tightened on her arms, but she barely registered their grip.
"He shoved me out the door, holding me by my hair in front of him, holding a revolver to my head as he headed for his truck."
"Geeze." The word puffed against her temple, hot and hard.
"Everybody was shouting now. Dal, me, the cops. Nobody seemed to notice Theo step out onto the porch."
#
A chill seeped from her into Cole's bones. She went on, reciting the events as though she were an observer and not a victim.
"The only words I could make out through all the shouting were 'Dal, let her go.'"
Cole moved his hands up and down her arms, trying to rub some warmth into her—trying to comfort her.
"It all happened in seconds," she went on in her flat voice. "But it seemed to play out in slow motion. I remember every detail. Dal turning toward Theo. Theo raising his baseball bat to swing at Dal. The gun barrel swinging away from my head toward Theo. The click of the hammer striking the firing pin, the explosion of sound in my ear, the blowback from the end of the barrel. The impact of the bullet hitting Theo's chest."
Shudders took hold of her body. She was no longer reciting a scene she'd witnessed. She was there, in that moment, sobs wracking her body.
She sagged toward the floor. Cole caught her, carried her into the bedroom, laid her on the bed, and curled his body around hers. It seemed an eternity before her sobs abated and she spoke again, her every word ripping at the scabs of that day's memories.
"I was on my knees beside Theo, blood pouring from his chest even though I was pressing on the wound."
She shook her head. "I don't remember how I got there. I don't remember the cops tackling Dal. But video of it was all over the news that night along with a shot of me yanking off my t-shirt and pressing it to Theo's wound."
She took a couple deep breaths. "What I do remember is screaming for help. What I remember is the heat of the blood pouring out of my baby brother's chest and over my hands. What I will remember to my dying day are the last words Theo spoke to me. 'This time I protected you, Sis.'"
She lifted her face and looked Cole in the eye. "It's my fault he's dead."
"Because he was protecting you?" Cole asked, struck by a sense of familiarity that churned through his gut.
"Because I called the cops, which only escalated the whole mess."
"You don't know that," Cole said almost by rote as he pushed back the memory scratching to escape the shadows of his mind. Andi needed him now.
He stroked away her tears with his thumb. "Dal could have wound up killing both of you if you hadn't called the cops."
"I might have been able to talk him down."
Cole shook his head, confident in his words because something inside him knew them to be true. "There's no reasoning with a drug addict, especially one desperate for his next fix."
"In my head, I know that. But in my heart…"
In my heart.
He knew something about how the heart could overrule the head, and it had something to do with that memory he refused to face—that memory about protecting…or failing to protect someone. That memory that had given him his own nightmares.
And what Andi had experienced the day one brother had killed the other—the day she'd been held hostage was, in itself, the stuff nightmares were made of. But there was another element, one he too was familiar with even if he didn't know why.
He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Is this what the nightmares have been about? The guilt of surviving when your little brother didn't?"
"I protected him all my life."
"And that day you weren't able to save him," he murmured, a memory of his failure to save someone's life squeezing at his chest.
He tucked her close, reciting words he remembered being spoken to him. "What you did was the best you knew to do in the moment. You have no way of knowing whether or not your actions changed the outcome. That's what you have to keep telling yourself if you're ever going to get past the guilt."
"I don't deserve to get past the guilt," she said with a quiet conviction.
He knew that feeling deep inside him. But there was something in her past that he could use to reason away her undeserved guilt—to save her from it.
"That's your father talking," Cole said quietly. "Him telling you that you don't deserve better. Are you going to let your father keep you down the rest of your life?"
"When I was a kid living with his verbal abuse, I saw through it—escaped it," she murmured. "At least I thought I did."
"You were strong enough to rise above his words then. You can do it again."
She peeked up at him. "But Theo still died protecting me."
He looked her deep in the eye. "Then grieve him. But stop feeling guilty over his death. If it was the other way around, if he'd been the one to survive, what would you tell him about guilt?"
/> "Guilt would have destroyed Theo. He was too sensitive. I'd have told him to let it go."
"Follow your own advice."
She nodded. But something still haunted her. He could see it in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She woke with a start, sunlight pouring through the curtains and the other side of the bed empty. He'd left. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
But she smelled coffee and hope surged through her before she remembered the automatic timer that started the coffeemaker. She pulled her knees up in front of her and hugged them to her chest, a plethora of emotions rolling through her.
The disparity of him being gone.
The anger that he hadn't even said good-bye.
The mix of relief and guilt that he'd left before she'd had the chance to confess what she kept from him.
Then she smelled something more than coffee. The distinct scent of frying sausage.
She scrambled from the bed, stumbling on the sheets as she lurched for the doorway. On the brink of the great room, she tottered and gripped the doorframe.
There he was, Cole, in her kitchen, spatula in hand, cooking breakfast. He turned a dazzling, dimpled smile on her. "About time you got up, sleepyhead."
If this was a dream, she didn't want to wake up.
She took one hesitant step away from the bedroom toward him.
"I'm making omelets. Don't ask me how I know I can make them. I just can."
She sprinted the rest of the way to him. Threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
He wasn't a dream. He was real. Every inch of contact confirmed it.
He hugged her back, murmuring, "You're going to get burnt sausage crumbles in your omelet if you keep this up."
She pressed her lips to his ear, the slope of his jaw, his cheek, interspersing her kisses with, "You're still here. You didn't leave."
His arms tightened around her and, when he spoke, there was a somber earnestness to his tone. "I'd never leave without saying good-bye."
She slid to her feet. He still smiled enough to show his dimples. But his eyes were full of promises—promises that he wouldn't abandon her—promises he wouldn't ever keep anything from her.
Saving Andi: St. John Sibling Series: FRIENDS Page 12